Business Commons^™

Optimizing Incentives For Systems With Heterogeneous Agents, Chen Chen

Dissertations

This dissertation explores new models and applications based on the game theory of incentives. This exploration starts with controlling an invasive insect problem to address one of the most significant challenges facing our forests, the invasion of the Emerald ash borer (EAB), a non-native, wood-boring insect that threatens to kill most ash trees in North America, through designing two new cost-sharing programs between the landowners and local governments. Ash trees are one of North America’s most widely distributed tree genera and a vital part of the green infrastructure of cities, where they provide residents with numerous social, economic, and ecological …

Statistics-Based Anomaly Detection And Correction Method For Amazon Customer Reviews, Ishani Chatterjee

Dissertations

People nowadays use the Internet to project their assessments, impressions, ideas, and observations about various subjects or products on numerous social networking sites. These sites serve as a great source of gathering information for data analytics, sentiment analysis, natural language processing, etc. The most critical challenge is interpreting this data and capturing the sentiment behind these expressions. Sentiment analysis is analyzing, processing, concluding, and inferencing subjective texts with the views. Companies use sentiment analysis to understand public opinions, perform market research, analyze brand reputation, recognize customer experiences, and study social media influence. According to the different needs for aspect granularity, …

Multi-Stage Stochastic Optimization And Reinforcement Learning For Forestry Epidemic And Covid-19 Control Planning, Sabah Bushaj

Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on developing new modeling and solution approaches based on multi-stage stochastic programming and reinforcement learning for tackling biological invasions in forests and human populations. Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) is the nemesis of ash trees. This research introduces a multi-stage stochastic mixed-integer programming model to assist forest agencies in managing emerald ash borer insects throughout the U.S. and maximize the public benets of preserving healthy ash trees. This work is then extended to present the first risk-averse multi-stage stochastic mixed-integer program in the invasive species management literature to account for extreme events. Significant computational achievements are obtained using …

Constructive Solution Methodologies To The Capacitated Newsvendor Problem And Surrogate Extension, Pinyuan Shan

Dissertations

The newsvendor problem is a single-period stochastic model used to determine the order quantity of perishable product that maximizes/minimizes the profit/cost of the vendor under uncertain demand. The goal is to fmd an initial order quantity that can offset the impact of backlog or shortage caused by mismatch between the procurement amount and uncertain demand. If there are multiple products and substitution between them is feasible, overstocking and understocking can be further reduced and hence, the vendor's overall profit is improved compared to the standard problem. When there are one or more resource constraints, such as budget, volume or weight, …

High-Speed Rail Safety Analysis Based On Dual-Weighted Complex Network, Liu Lv

Dissertations

This study uses a complex network model to analyze the causes of accidents in high-speed railway operations. By identifying the key factors that led to high-speed railway accidents, hidden safety hazards were discovered. This will help improve the operational safety of the U.S. high-speed rail line under construction.

The analysis uses the regional high-speed railway network in Guangzhou, China as a case study, including the railway (including high-speed railway) accidents that occurred in the company's jurisdiction from 2013 to 2017. With comparative analysis between general railways and high-speed railways, the changes of high-speed railway safety factors are explored. Data analysis …

Online Fulfillment: F-Warehouse Order Consolidation And Bops Store Picking Problems, Wen Zhu

Dissertations

Fulfillment of online retail orders is a critical challenge for retailers since the legacy infrastructure and control methods are ill suited for online retail. The primary performance goal of online fulfillment is speed or fast fulfillment, requiring received orders to be shipped or ready for pickup within a few hours. Several novel numerical problems characterize fast fulfillment operations and this research solves two such problems. Order fulfillment warehouses (F-Warehouses) are a critical component of the physical internet behind online retail supply chains. Two key distinguishing features of an F-Warehouse are (i) Explosive Storage Policy – A unique item can be …

A Comprehensive And Absolute Corporate Sustainability Assessment And Enhanced Input Output Life Cycle Assessment, Joseph M. Wright

Dissertations

Stresses due to economic activity are threatening to exceed environmental and societal limits with the potential to jeopardize local communities and create global crises. This research proposes new methodologies and analytic techniques to comprehensively assess corporate sustainability and enhance the efficiency of estimating environmental and social impacts with Input Output Life Cycle Assessment (IOLCA).

Sustainability assessments and management require consideration of both social and environmental impacts as outflows of economic activity. There are a number of assessment tools available to gain insight into environmental and social impacts; but in most cases, these approaches lack essential components for a comprehensive and …

Changing The Focus: Worker-Centric Optimization In Human-In-The-Loop Computations, Mohammadreza Esfandiari

Dissertations

A myriad of emerging applications from simple to complex ones involve human cognizance in the computation loop. Using the wisdom of human workers, researchers have solved a variety of problems, termed as “micro-tasks” such as, captcha recognition, sentiment analysis, image categorization, query processing, as well as “complex tasks” that are often collaborative, such as, classifying craters on planetary surfaces, discovering new galaxies (Galaxyzoo), performing text translation. The current view of “humans-in-the-loop” tends to see humans as machines, robots, or low-level agents used or exploited in the service of broader computation goals. This dissertation is developed to shift the focus back …

Assignment Of E-Commerce Orders To Fulfillment Warehouses, Ahmad Basem Zamka

Theses

For large e-commerce companies such as Amazon, when an order comes, this order might be available at more than one fulfillment centers. Therefore, the question of which fulfillment center this order should be fulfilled from would arise.

In a typical situation, customer demand is fulfilled from the closest fulfillment center. However, this approach does not always provide the optimal solution since there are so many factors that could be involved in making such a decision. These factors might include inventory balance, product correlations, and future demand.

Our decision model focuses on putting future orders in consideration while assigning orders to …

Family Business: Innovation And Tradition In A Global Economy, Francesca Fornasari

Theses

Eighty-five percent of Italian companies are run as a family business. They are considered vital for Italian economy. The purpose of this thesis is to study how these companies challenge the global market to understand if the globalization can cause them disadvantages or benefits. The study explains what a family business is and who are the components that can be part of it. Then it focuses on the structure of the firms, how the families run their businesses and organize the tasks between the family members. This thesis considers the strategies of innovation adopted by the family to remain competitive …

Knowledge Management In New Product Development (Npd), Luca Maria Mancinelli

Theses

This thesis analyses features that, in New Product Development process (NPD), foster knowledge, and their contribution to the creation and application of knowledge with the aim of increasing both global performance and organizational effectiveness. Since knowledge is becoming more important to achieve competitive advantage, companies have already started to focus on their ability to generate new competencies and create new opportunities for producing new knowledge.

One of the issues compelling knowledge management understands what aspects of the organization's work system and organizational design affect its ability to acquire, create and apply knowledge. In fact, the way that workers are organized …

Halal Certification For An Industrial Machine Intended To Come In Contact With Food, Luca Caffarelli

Theses

Halal Certification is a worldwide recognition that the products are permissible under Islamic law. These products are thus edible, drinkable or usable by Muslims. It can be extended to industrial machinery and tools. This Certification must be issued by a Notified Body under the supervision of an IMAM. Focus of the Certification are GMPs and Food Contact Materials and Articles. Four main phases to achieve Certification (the scheme is the same of ISO 14001, ISO 18001 and ISO 9001):

• Pre-Audit - The activity is to evaluate the documentation describing our internal system.
• Audit - The activity is to evaluate how …

Development Of The Commodity Strategy: The Case Of Sidel, Giuseppe Celiberti

Theses

The thesis will address the development of the sourcing strategy in Sidel, a manufacturing company that provides packaging equipment for liquids such as water, carbonated and non-carbonated soft drinks, sensitive beverages like milk, and liquid dairy products.

It is developed the sourcing strategy structure that characterizes every commodity, with a particular focus on the commodity execution process. Then, it is discussed a concrete case: the one of Nitro Dozers. In order to achieve the goal, it is used a systematic approach that focuses on different steps, from the Product overview and Spend analysis to the supplier assessment and benchmarking.

After …

Start-Up And Open Innovation, Gonxhe Tali

Theses

Nowadays, in many industries the traditional research and development approach has become obsolete. For this reason, during the past two years companies started focusing on Startups and the Open Innovation. Firms should use internal and external relationships, ideas and paths in order to advance their organizational process and technology. Open Innovation combines all those ideas into a system and defines all the requirements for the new business model.

The purpose of this thesis is to illustrate how Startups successfully organize and manage open Innovation with large and small companies and to highlights the strengths, weaknesses, challenges and barriers faced by …

Water Purification In Haiti : An Engineers Without Borders Project, Melissa Valoura

Theses

The objective of this thesis was to present the necessary steps to help a town in Haiti develop an organization focused on improving their water quality. It goes through the technology needed to create the organization and explains the procedures for implementing a charitable project in a foreign country. A narrative of the student project in Milot, Haiti, where students from the New Jersey Institute of Technology's Engineers Without Borders Chapter implemented a water purification project, explains the course of action that was taken and gives an example of a successful project. A summary of Haiti and its history paints …

Determining Continual Improvement Process Methods Within Quality Management Systems, Diane M. Bové

Theses

Institutionalized standards require organizations to actively define and implement quality management systems, which includes active participation in continual improvement efforts. Interpretations and practices vary on implementation methodology.

Traditional views of quality do not integrate the technical disciplines into a defined science which would support a standardized approach for continual improvement implementation.

In order to optimize improvement efforts, a conceptual hypothesis is proposed to integrate quality through combining and collaborating implementation efforts of engineering, control, assurance, improvement and costs. The purpose of this thesis is to establish a roadmap to assist in choosing effective quality improvement methodologies and toolsets that assist …

Design, Simulation And Fabrication Of A Mems In-Situ Contactless Sensor To Detect Plasma Induced Damage During Reactive Ion Etching, Subramanian Ganesh

Theses

The present trend in the semiconductor industry is towards submicron devices. An inevitable process technique in achieving this is by reactive ion etching of the polysilicon gate. During RIE, the gate oxide may get damaged due to several causes. One of the main causes of the damage is the non-uniformity of the plasma. It is reported that these plasma inconsistencies are mainly due to electrode design and that they create spatial plasma potential fluctuation. These fluctuations are reported to be in the range of 10-20 Volts. By providing an in-situ monitoring of the wafers, the reliability of the device could …

Integrating Key Functions In Product Development : A Conceptual Product Development Model For The Korean Context, Jong-Wook Kim

Theses

The high-tech market is characterized by market uncertainty, technology uncertainty and rapid change. To survive in this risky high-tech market, a company must create competitively effective product development practices that meet its own unique needs and circumstances.

One effective practice is cross-functional integration in the product development process. The advantages of integration include a shortened time to market, successful transformation of research results to production, productivity improvement, innovation project success, and high-quality problem solutions. However, these advantages are rarely obtained in the current product development practices of Korean companies. Their product development efforts are generally characterized by time consuming sequential …

Management Of Construction Jobsite Productivity : A Self Assessment Approach, Nicos Poliviou Nicolaou

Theses

A critical component of construction project management is the improvement of jobsite productivity. This paper proposes a procedure for use by project managers to assess jobsite productivity performance. The methodology provides a framework which when applied will identify specific aspects of the jobsite where potential productivity improvement is possible. A major feature is its systematic approach which will direct the project manager to the specific resources which when better managed will lead to lower construction costs.

A Model For The Determination Of Market Based Pricing Of Telecommunication Products, Katherine J. Sullivan

Theses

The deregulation of AT&T, has impacted telecommunication product pricing in the U.S. market. Previously, pricing had been based on cost plus mark-up, as stipulated by regulatory commissions. Now, pricing decisions require consideration of the competitive impact, consumer demand for the product, corporate pricing objectives and marketing strategies. This paper proposes a pricing process that is relevant for this new environment which enables the product manager to price properly.

The method proposed utilizes microeconomic theory and takes into account the product test price, unit cost, opportunity cost, nonprice factor cost and consumer demand. Incorporating a number of different pricing strategies, it …

Process Hazard Review For Drug Development, Rudolph R. Schwarz

Theses

The development of drugs has become increasingly complex, requiring the use of a wide variety of pharmaceutical actives and isolated intermediates, a majority of which are not always completely characterized with respect to their hazard potential. This can present a source of potential exposure to those who handle these substances during initial drug development, manufacturing of the drug active and ultimately the finished pharamaceutical product. It is, therefore, essential that safety and health information be documented and communicated during the entire drug development process.

The need for application of process hazard review techniques to the development of new drug materials …

Emergency Stop Devices And The Human Factors Of Response, Robert Paul Guinter

Theses

The manual emergency stop Was recognized as an im- portant aspect of machine control very early during the history of powered mechanical systems. The purpose, of course, was to allow machinery to be quickly stepped during emergencies to minimize equipment damage and/or personal injury. Today, however, the emphasis of control is being shifted more and more toward totally automatic systems. Often, the importance of manual emergency stopping and override of these systems is lost in the zeal to perfect automatic controls. The problem that evolves is how and when to provide an efficient human-machine interface to allow a manual emergency …

A Research Study To Determine The Characteristics And Attitudes Shared By Entrepreneurs And Intrapreneurs And The Similarities And Differences Between Them, Miguel A. Vargas

Theses

The United States of America has been the mecca of many ventures for people with vision, goals and perseverance. The prosperity of our nation has been paved by individuals with great ambition, determination and insight, who have dared to take on a risk in owning a business enterprise.

This research study was conducted to determine the characteristics and attitudes of both entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs, as well as the similarities and differences between them.

For this study, a survey of entrepreneurs.was conducted through the use of questionnaires distributed to business owners located in the counties of Essex, Passaic and Hudson, in …

An Inquiry Into Engineering Career Choice And Career Satisfaction, Gunars Bachs

Theses

The purpose of this thesis was to ascertain factors that motivate a person to study engineering, and to examine the aspects of engineering career satisfaction. This study was conducted as a survey by means of a mail questionnaire, which was distributed among graduates of New Jersey Institute of Technology. Another sample, comprised of master's degree recipients of NJIT who had received their bachelor's degree from other undergraduate schools, served as a control group.

Motivation factors and positive and negative aspects of the engineering career were established and ranked in order of their importance. A method to measure career satisfaction was …

The Operational Utility Of The Walton-Mckersie Attitudinal Structuring Model In Collective Bargaining, Donald Warren

Theses

This work is an heuristic inquiry into behavioral change theory designed for application to labor/management interaction in collective bargaining. The theory itself was postulated by Richard E. Walton and Robert B. McKersie in their book A Behavioral Theory Of Labor Negotiations. The principles of their theory are highly axiomatic and their importance and validity can only be recognized through applied empirical analyses that demonstrate or refute its concept.

The aspect of the theory which is the focal point of this research pertains to the structuring and restructuring of attitudes and attendant relationships resulting from the collective bargaining process. The objective …

Control Of Construction Costs During Construction, David H. Foo

Theses

The construction of a major project requires a vast amount of time, money, material and human resources. Proper coordination of these elements into an array of activities is crutial to the success of the project if it is to be built on time and within budget. As technology advances, the complexity of the project increases the resources to build them remain finite, and therefore, the project manager must seek methods to improve control on the construction project.

This thesis provides an overall view of the relatively new and rapidly expanding field of cost engineering. Cost engineering may be defined as …

Ecuador And A Business Opportunity, Cesar Arturo Paredes Roldan

Theses

As a result of its recent status as a petroleum exporting country, Ecuador is enjoying an economic boom, which is expected to lead to the formation of new enterprises, the creation of jobs, the utilization of human and natural resources and the encouragement of harmonious development of the national economy.

This thesis is based on the belief that the private sector must assume a decisive role in the adequate implementation of Ecuador's industrial development programs, and it aims to show the feasibility of establishing there an enterprise that would manufacture domestic electric irons.

The coverage of the subject comprises three …

Non-Standard Workweek Scheduling Technique Selection, John Alexander Oak

Theses

This thesis presents a description of non-standard work scheduling techniques and a comparison method which enables decision-makers to differentiate between available work-scheduling alternatives with the purpose in mind of selecting the most appropriate and suitable arrangement. The method developed calls for the decision-maker to follow a five-step sequential process to obtain final results. The ingredients necessary to achieve such final results are obtained in a manner similar to that demanded by decision-making-under-uncertainty conditions commonly followed in actual industrial settings.

Since the primary objective of business management is the achievement of a profit through the manipulation of available resources, initial sections …

Design For A Developing Consortium, Henry A. Mauermeyer

Theses

The number of consortia in American higher education expanded rapidly from only ten in 1960 to eighty in 1973. Many do not have an organized method of developing interinstitutional cooperation, structuring their internal management, or preparing to meet future expansion.

The design of an organizational process appropriate to consortia in general has been developed in this thesis. The design is based on an analysis of various materials: (1) literature on the consortium movement; (2) data gathered from a nationwide survey conducted by the author; (3) visits with directors of consortia and experts in the consortium field; (4) actual working experience …

The Design And Implementation Of A Time-Shared Computer Based Construction Cost Estimating System For An Electric Utility, Thomas Arnold Westphal

Theses

The work of the distribution department of an elec tric utility involves a great deal of medium to heavy construction. This work is vital to serve the energy needs of the public. An electric utility constantly builds, reinforces, and repairs electric distribution facilities. The material and labor used to accomplish this construction is expensive. Money in sufficient amounts is seldom, if ever, available to finance all proposed construction projects. Therefore, the cost of proposed projects must be estimated in advance, so that management may decide on an economic basis which projects will be authorized.

The need for accurate construction cost …